Promises are temporary. Politics is forever.

Abstract The 2024 Indian general election marked a fundamental transformation in political campaigning, where data analytics emerged as perhaps the most decisive factor in electoral strategy. This article examines how political parties in India have evolved from traditional grassroots mobilization to sophisticated data-driven campaigning, leveraging analytics to understand voter behavior and craft hyper-local messaging that moves beyond broad demographics to specific constituencies and even ward-level campaigns. Drawing on the comprehensive Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) study of digital campaign strategies, alongside platform transparency data from Meta and Google, the analysis reveals how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has operationalized data analytics through its SARAL (Sangathan Reporting and Analysis) app and integrated digital infrastructure to conduct what amounts to 543 distinct constituency-level campaigns. The article further examines the emer...

The analysis throws up a rather revealing picture of how digital campaigning unfolded in India’s 2024 Lok Sabha contest. One sees the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Indian National Congress engaged in two quite different digital battles, according to that comprehensive look at ad spending from the Lokniti-CSDS study. What emerges is this striking contrast. One side unleashed something on an industrial scale, flooding the space with sheer volume. The other, more constrained, tried to make every rupee work harder. The numbers paint quite the stark portrait of where political advertising now stands in India’s digital era — and they prompt some rather uncomfortable thoughts about fairness in the whole electoral machinery. On Meta’s platforms, for instance, the BJP rolled out 41,127 ad campaigns. Congress, by comparison, managed just 1,041. The gulf on Google and YouTube yawned even wider: 225,695 campaigns for the BJP against the Congress’s 9,251, a ratio of roughly twenty-four to one. Yet...

Abstract This article examines the evolving role of nano and micro-influencers in Indian political campaigns, moving beyond macro-influencers and celebrity endorsements to explore how hyperlocal creators—teachers, shop owners, district-level content producers—are becoming central to political persuasion. Drawing on campaign data from the 2024 general election, the 2025 Bihar assembly polls, and the 2026 West Bengal and Tamil Nadu elections, alongside industry analysis and academic research, the article argues that these smaller-scale influencers offer political parties a unique combination of credibility, cost-effectiveness, and hyperlocal reach that traditional advertising and even larger influencers cannot match. The article analyses how political parties are adapting their strategies to leverage these creator networks, the regulatory and ethical challenges this raises, and the implications for democratic deliberation in India. The findings suggest that the shift toward nano and mic...